Finance Committee on May 16th, 2012

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I have a couple of quick comments.

So you can concur that it was the AG, not the government, that deemed these audits as unnecessary.

[Gordon Boissonneault]

Yes.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

And this practice is actually moving these areas into consistency with what is happening elsewhere within the AG's department.

[Gordon Boissonneault]

Yes. These legislative changes will allow them to be consistent.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

Also, in October 2011 there was a letter sent to the chair of the House public accounts committee—of course, as we know, the NDP MP chair is David Christopherson—and at that time the AG announced his intention to seek these amendments.

[Gordon Boissonneault]

Yes, he did.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

That's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. McLeod.

We'll go to Mr. Brison, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The changes don't include CRA. The AG will continue to perform annual audits on CRA. Why was the requirement for CRA maintained? Is it somehow deemed a higher-risk agency, or what's the...?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gordon Boissonneault]

Not higher-risk—

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

You have to audit the auditors?

[Gordon Boissonneault]

The AG considered including CRA in this, but on further consultation with CRA, they concluded that given the nature of CRA and its centrality to government accounts, it made sense for them to maintain an annual in-depth audit of CRA.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

So because of the importance of CRA, it was determined.... Well, CFIA is kind of important, too. In terms of some of the organizational changes that are taking place at CFIA, and that will take place in the next few years, and some of the concerns around governance for things like food safety and the performance around that, it just seems like a very strange time to eliminate the AG's audit function on CFIA.

I guess broadly, within the committee, at a time when we're going through an expenditure review process and when the Auditor General's function, in part, is value for money, operational efficacy, and that sort of thing, this is something that I would have thought we'd want more of, not less. I know that's a bit of an editorial, but it just seems like a very strange time to be going in this direction.

On the timing of the decision for the Auditor General to scale back from some of these agencies, was that concurrent with the reality of his budget being reduced, or would that have been...?

[Gordon Boissonneault]

No. The Auditor General was not part of the review base.

He was requested to look for efficiencies wherever he could, as were other departments and agencies that were not part of the review base. This is what he concluded.

The motivation also is, to go back to your premise, a feeling that these particular exercises were onerous and taking away from core priorities, which includes performance auditing, which is more central to the role of the AG.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I understand.

I used to be part of a past expenditure review committee. What happens is that you ask the departments and agencies to submit those areas where they would potentially reduce, so the Auditor General was asked to provide or to volunteer areas where they could actually reduce their costs.

So this process of the Auditor General reducing his audit function—or their audit function—of all these agencies, except for the CRA, came as a result of a request by the government for him to reduce the costs or the budget of the organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Gordon Boissonneault]

It is possible that they have been looking at this for some time. I know that in the case of the decision to cease the assessment of performance reports, this is something they have been considering for some time, but the opportunity arose at this juncture.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

“Opportunity” is a euphemistic way to look at this. I mean, the Auditor General was asked to reduce his expenses and find ways to do it. He found a way to do it and did a prioritization, which he had to do.

I just think that as a committee we have to wonder whether it's prudent to reduce the audit function of government during a period of expenditure review. That's something that I think all of the Conservatives would agree with, in that even with a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government—

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

—these things are continually very important.

Thank you.

[Mike Wallace]

You finally got the point.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

I have Monsieur Caron next on the list.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you.

I would like to pick up on what Ms. Nash was saying.

You mentioned that the Auditor General was going to make these recommendations. I would like you to clarify the following, which you presented in the Senate. It is more or less the same issue. I will have to read it in English because it is from the “blues”.

You said:

The Auditor General was not part of the strategic operating review. However, the Minister of Finance had written to the Auditor General last summer to request that they adhere to the spirit and intent of the review. In response, the Auditor General identified these changes as well as a number of....

It goes on.

So basically the Auditor General didn't really volunteer as much as he had been asked to volunteer by the Minister of Finance.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Is there a point of order?